Archiv für den Monat: Oktober 2016

Philippa (c. 1073 – 28 November 1118) was the sovereign Countess of Toulouse, as well as the duchess consort of Aquitaine by marriage to Duke William IX of Aquitaine.

Philippa was born in approximately 1073 to Count William IV of Toulouse, and his wife Emma of Mortain. She was his only surviving child, and thus, by the laws of Toulouse, his heir. In 1088, William went on a pilgrimage to Palestine, leaving his brother Raymond of Saint-Gilles as regent. (Before he left, it is claimed, he also married his daughter to the King of Aragon in order to disinherit her; however, this marriage is apocryphal, as contemporary evidence shows that Sancho was still married to his previous wife at the time of his death in 1094.)

Philippa’s early life – if she was not married to Sancho Ramirez of Aragon – is something of a mystery. It is known that she did not marry William IX of Aquitaine until 1094, after the death of her father and the succession of her uncle; the circumstances in which she lived prior to her father’s death, the manner of her disinheritance, and the arrangement of her marriage, are thus unknown. Those historians that argue her to have been married to Sancho Ramirez argue that her removal from Toulouse prevented her from effectively claiming her inheritance, and that with the death of Sancho, she was free to remarry based on her own choice. What is certain is that, upon the death of Count William, Philippa’s claims were ignored, and Raymond became count. Philippa then married William, whom she considered worthy due to his numerous merits: a handsome man fully capable of flattering a woman, he was not only one of the most prominent Dukes in Europe, able to give her the life she felt she deserved; his realm was also conveniently situated next to Toulouse, and consequently would easily be able to regain her homeland for her own – as indeed, the Duke promised to do for her. Consequently, the two swiftly married. Why she was allowed by her uncle to marry such a dangerous man, or indeed if Raymond had any choice in the matter, is unknown.

When Raymond IV of Toulouse set out on the First Crusade in the autumn of 1096, he left his son Bertrand to rule the County. However, in the Spring of 1098, William and Philippa marched into the city of Toulouse, and took control without a single life being lost. In the next year, she gave birth to her first child in the city: William the Toulousain.

In 1099, her husband went on crusade and he left her as regent in Poitou.

She was an admirer of Robert of Arbrissel and persuaded her husband to grant him land in Poitou to establish a religious community dedicated to the Virgin Mary. In 1100 he founded Fontevraud Abbey there.

She was stunned in 1100 when her husband mortgaged Toulouse to her cousin Bertrand in exchange for a vast sum of money, which the Duke used to go on Crusade himself. Philippa, removed from her home, was sent to his capital of Poitiers, from where she ruled Aquitaine on behalf of her husband whilst he was absent.

After William’s return, he and Philippa for a time lived contentedly with each other, producing a further five daughters, and a son, Raymond. She also ignored the Duke’s sexual boasting in song and talk, instead concentrating on religion (in particular the Abbey of Fontevrault, of which she remained a keen sponsor), especially the teachings of its founder, who preached the superiority of women over men. Her obsession with a doctrine considered offensive by many men of that time, combined with William’s growing dissatisfaction with her, and his teasing of her (claiming to be founding an abbey of prostitutes), led to discord in the marriage.

Toulouse had been won back by William for his wife in 1113, following the death of Bertrand in Syria in 1112: his heir being his half-brother, the 9 year old Alphonse-Jourdain, William had been unopposed. Thus, by 1114, Philippa was spending most of her time ruling there. Accordingly, she was less than pleased when, upon her return from Toulouse to Poitiers in 1114, she discovered her husband to have moved his mistress, Viscountess Dangereuse of Châtellerault, into her palace. Philippa appealed to friends and the church for assistance in ousting her husband’s mistress, but to no avail – none could persuade the Duke to give up his mistress.

In 1116, a humiliated Philippa, devastated by her husband’s repayment of her service to him for so many years, left the Court, taking refuge at the Abbey of Fontevrault. There she became a close friend of her husband’s first wife, Ermengarde of Anjou, and the two spent much time reflecting upon the shortcomings of William. However, for all Philippa’s devotion to the Abbey and its ideals, she found little peace there, both angry and resentful that her husband had cast her off in favour of a mistress. She died of unknown causes there on 28 November 1118, survived by her husband, his mistress, and Ermengarde, who would shortly attempt to avenge Philippa by attempting to have Dangereuse banished from Aquitaine.

Oldcroft is a hamlet in Gloucestershire, England. The village of Yorkley is to the northwest, and the hamlet of Viney Hill is to the northeast.

Oldcroft is situated near the „Dean road“, a medieval route that ran between Lydney and Mitcheldean. In the 17th century there were cabin dwellings in Oldcroft. Much of the early settlement was by squatters, and in 1782 there were thirteen cottages recorded at Deadman’s Cross in Oldcroft. In 1834 Oldcroft contained around thirty-five scattered cottages. In the later 20th century several cottages were enlarged and some large houses were built, especially on the south-east side of the hamlet. There was once a pub in Oldcroft called the Loyal Forester – it closed before 1893.

The Primitive Methodists opened a chapel at Oldcroft in 1876. It closed, following storm damage, in 1929. It was later reopened as an independent church, but closed in the early 1960s, and from 1975 until 1991 the building was an electrical engineer’s workshop. In 1958 the Assemblies of God also had a chapel at Oldcroft, demolished by 1975.

Tropisetron (INN) is a serotonin 5-HT3 receptor antagonist used mainly as an antiemetic to treat nausea and vomiting following chemotherapy, although it has been used experimentally as an analgesic in cases of fibromyalgia. The drug is available in a 5 mg oral preparation or in 2 mg intravenous form. It is marketed by Novartis in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea and the Philippines as Navoban, but is not available in the U.S. It is also available from Novell Pharmaceutical Laboratories and marketed in several Asian countries as Setrovel.

Tropisetron acts as both a selective 5-HT3 receptor antagonist and α7-nicotinic receptor agonist.

Tropisetron is a well-tolerated drug with few side effects. Headache, constipation, and dizziness are the most commonly reported side effects associated with its use. Hypotension, transient liver enzyme elevation, immune hypersensitivity syndromes and extrapyramidal side effects have also been associated with its use on at least one occasion.There have been no significant drug interactions reported with this drug’s use. It is broken down by the hepatic cytochrome P450 system and it has little effect on the metabolism of other drugs broken down by this system.

The Grand Junction Railway (GJR) was a short-line railway that ran between Peterborough and Belleville in Ontario, Canada. It was originally designed to be a loop, starting near Toronto and running northeast to Peterborough, then southeast to meet the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR) on the banks of Lake Ontario. By the time it had been built other lines had run into Toronto, so the GJR instead ran from Belleville to Peterborough, and then to Omemee where it met the Midland Railway of Canada. Just north of its starting point, the wholly owned subsidiary Belleville and North Hastings Railway branched off for the mining areas around Madoc, meeting the Central Ontario Railway just outside Eldorado. The GJR was one of five struggling short lines merged into the Midland Railway in April 1882. Midland, in turn, was leased by the GTR in 1884 and acquired outright in 1893. The line was used for passengers into the 1960s and freight until the 1980s, but was abandoned starting in 1987. The first portion between Corbyville and Peterborough was lifted that year, followed by the section between Peterborough and Lindsay in 1990.

Like many historical railways in Ontario, the route of the GJR is now used as a recreational trail.

The Menard House, also known as The Oaks, is a historic detached-home located at 1605 Thirty-Third Street in Galveston, Texas. Built in 1838, it is the oldest surviving structure in Galveston as recently as 2014 and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Menard House is named for its first owner, Michel B. Menard, a Canadian-born trader, real estate investor, and a founder of Galveston. Menard built on outlot block 37, indicating a location outside of Galveston city limits. The Menard House was fabricated, then shipped from Maine in parts. The combination of a dearth of carpenters in 1830s Texas and excess cargo space in Texas-bound ships made prefabricated buildings economically viable. Menard probably started building the house in 1837 for his second wife, Catherine Maxwell. She died in the summer of 1838, the same year construction was completed. Houston co-founder and Galveston City Company investor John Kirby Allen purchased the property in 1838, but died that July.

By 1843, a cousin had deeded the property to Menard’s third wife, Mary Jane (Clemens) Riddle Menard. She lived in the house until her death in December 1843. Michel Menard married Rebecca Mary Bass and adopted her two children. In 1850, she bore him his only child, Doswell Menard. Around this time, Menard added two wings to the house, which later became the venue for Galveston’s first Mardi Gras ball in 1853.

Four years after Michel Menard died in 1856, Rebecca Menard married Colonel J.S. Thrasher, former United States Consul at Havana, Cuba. Edwin Ketchum purchased the house from the Menard family in 1880 and the Ketchum family kept the house well-maintained until 1977.

The Galveston Historical Foundation and the National Trust for Historic Preservation bought the Menard House in June 1992. In 1994, Pat and Fred Burns of Houston acquired the deteriorating building, then completed its restoration in 1995. The Menard House opened for the 1995 Historic Homes Tour, hosting 6,500 visitors for the event.

Tafsir al-Kabir („The Large Commentary“), also known as Mafatih al-Ghayb („Keys to the Unknown“) is a classical Islamic Tafsir book, written by the well-known Persian Islamic theologian and philosopher Muhammad ibn Umar Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (1149-1209). The book is an exegesis and commentary on the Qur’an. Although it was named „Mafatih Al-Ghayb“ (Keys to the Unseen), it was nicknamed Tafsir Al-Kabir (The Large Commentary). At 32 Volumes, it is larger than the 28 Volume Tafsir of At-Tabari named Jami‘ Al-Bayan. It is not unusual for contemporary works to use it as a reference.

One of [his] major concerns was the self-sufficiency of the intellect. […] [He] believed [that] proofs based on tradition (hadith) could never lead to certainty (yaqin) but only to presumption (zann), a key distinction in Islamic thought. […] [However] his acknowledgement of the primacy of the Qur’an grew with his years. […] [Al-Razi’s rationalism] undoubtedly holds an important place in the debate in the Islamic tradition on the harmonization of reason and revelation. In his later years, he also showed interest in mysticism, although this never formed a significant part of his thought.